Life out here by Bret Kofford: Too much winning

January 31, 2001

I am a winner. You're probably not. I'm sorry for that.

While I am as handsome as James Woods, as charming as George Costanza and smart as a wire-haired terrier, and that is all wonderful, in this case when I say I am a winner I mean I win things often. When I enter contests, I win quite regularly. It doesn't seem fair. For that I apologize.

Recently during the Imperial Valley Business Showcase I was implored by Carroll Buckley of KXO radio to enter some drawing his crack radio team was sponsoring. Hesitant to enter because I knew I might win, I filled out some form and entered the drawing, for which I did not even know the prize.

The next morning it was announced on KXO by the aforementioned local radio "personality" that they had both a "winner" and a "wiener" of their drawings. I was identified as the specific wiener. That was no surprise, because while I may be a wiener, I am the winner of a $500 package from Shiloh Inn. Now I will have to go find a Shiloh Inn somewhere to spend my prize. While I didn't seek the prize, I will take it, and I kinda feel bad about that.

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Speaking of wieners, several years ago, when I was young, poor and better looking than James Woods, I won a side of beef. Since my little old refrigerator could only hold maybe a pound of ground round and possibly a rump roast, I went to co-workers and asked if they were interested in sharing my bounty. "Would you like some of my meat?" I would ask. Many folks, apparently newly vegetarian, just made faces of disgust and walked away. For that I felt bad.

Once, when living in Georgia, I won free tickets to the Peach Bowl. I took my old friend King Tad Rock. I told him I would treat him, not thinking through that offer. When King Tad Rock is at a ball game, the beer guy practically takes a seat in King Tad Rock's row. My free tickets ended up costing me a fortune. Still, I felt good about that, at least as far as I remember.

I always win stuff during drawings at our annual holiday party here at the Press. The only person who wins more is Vickie Cheatham, pronounced "cheat-em." You figure it out.

Otherwise, I am No. 1 when it comes to winning stuff. When the radio station wants the eighth caller for a free CD, I tend to be No. 8; the sixth caller, I tend to be No. 6.

I have won trips, vacations and such. I rarely enter contests for trips, vacations and such.

I have won substantial prizes in the lottery a couple times. I rarely play the lottery.

Now some of you are probably thinking I have been anointed by God because of the consistent correctness of my political views as expressed in this column. While I can understand why some might think that, I once won a hooker in a drawing, so God probably isn't involved in my winning so much, and I am sorry about that. I did the right thing with the hooker, though, and I am not sorry about that.

I won the hooker when I was in college. I didn't mean to win her. And she wasn't really a hooker; at least that's what she said.

My roommates were in a fraternity. The fraternity was having a "smoker" fund-raiser at which young men do many things they shouldn't. I went to the smoker to join in some of those things, the more innocuous ones, of course.

Strippers were among the featured attractions in the fraternity house that night. While the young women were dropping their garments and gyrating, or vice versa, tickets for the women's post-strip sexual services were sold to scores of young men tanked up on tobacco, tequila and testosterone. I bought one to support my frat friends. I wasn't really interested in the romp with a hooker, having no particular affection for casual or paid-for sex or any affinity for strippers.

Guess whose ticket was drawn.

Being a macho young guy wanting to make an impression, I took the young woman into a back room. I then told her I wasn't interested in having my way with her, no offense. So we talked. She told me she didn't normally do this hooking aspect, that she was in barber school. She told me she was a mother. I wished her luck in her grooming training. She offered herself again, saying she had already been paid. I declined, politely. She said I was weird. I agreed. We parted company.

If I had known then what I know now, that I tend to win drawings, I wouldn't have entered that one. I still would have entered the keg of beer raffle that night, though, which I also won.

Recently I walked by a site where they were raffling off a big SUV, a Chevy Blazer or something. I decided not to enter. I could never fit it in my garage, what with it stuffed with all the stuff I have won over the years.

Winning things, I have found, isn't always all it's cracked up to be.

So, Imperial Valley, I am not going to enter any more contests for awhile. That way you can win a few. I'll feel good about that.